


Servalan Crowned

by kaet



Series: An Empress [1]
Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Gen, Reboot, Reimagined
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-07
Updated: 2015-02-07
Packaged: 2018-03-10 21:19:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3303869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaet/pseuds/kaet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Servalan is crowned galactic Empress in this short descriptive piece.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Servalan Crowned

**Author's Note:**

> This may serve as the first episode of a reboot, or reimagining, if there is interest. The next episode would focus on an origin story for Blake and would include actual plot. It is intended merely as an entertainment for friends and strangers. The origin is my offhand comment that Janacek's Glagolitic Mass would make excellent music for the coronation of Servalan.
> 
> I'm new to this and it's not a strong suit for me: be kind to my mistakes.
> 
> Though beta-ed a little, I still consider this to be in open-beta. I would welcome further suggestions.

On every planet the sun sinks in the west.

At a familiar clamour of trumpets, the great west doors of the Cathedral swung open. And on the threshold, glowing in white, but bathed in the red of that sinking sun, stood Supreme Commander Servalan — Galactic Empress Elect.

Amiens Cathedral stood draped in celebratory mourning. The last great gothic structure in the galaxy, it had been saved from The Federation’s iconoclasm for this very moment.

At the apex of every arch of the nave, bolts of black cloth hung in straight, dour submission from the vaulted ceiling, leaden and unmoved by circulating air. The arrayed flags of Federation regiments, in dull burgundies and timid greens, dared not raise sunken heads.

Chains: everywhere chains. Four _heavy iron_ chains hung from distant corners, suspending a great cast-iron chandelier over the centre of the nave. _Smaller steel chains_ , — strong enough — meticulously barred each door and window. Endless _delicate chains_ , — draped as bunting and as thin as spider’s silk, — adorned every wall, pew, and open space. But even these finest of decorations dare not shine, and dare not swing in the breeze.

For breeze there was. But only dust risked twisting and turning upon it, its dance made clear in sickly, limpid light which streamed through the tracery of the southern side.

_Turbulent_ dust twisted about itself, tying knots of air into ghostly roses. _Streams_ of dust wound skyward from the darkest places and into the milky light, as brambles shambolically twist toward the sun. And twinkling _gleams_ of dust caught that light, as it is caught by knives and thorns.

The palpable, massive space of the Cathedral became a writhing, twisted thicket of dust; a hypnotic, unbreachable barrier upon which commanders from all corners of the galaxy found themselves impaled. In the deadest of silences, Admirals and Generals, Consuls and Presidents stood fiddling anxiously with their thoughts.

At the lifeless eastern head, a sullen altar presented a large olive jerry can of anointing oil and a delicate, golden spoon of the kind required when supping with the devil: its small, dainty handle connected by a long, needle-like shaft to a tiny, precise bowl, — perhaps some instrument of surgery to be inserted upward, into the neck.

A thunder of heavy drums joined the trumpeting and soon, from a high, unseen place, a clarion choir. Servalan slowly entered through the western door and a quick chariot of brilliant, ruddy light galloped alongside her.

Even as the Empress Elect approached the altar, the train of her dress still crossed the Cathedral threshold and receded into the wretched farmland beyond, its satin drape and folds merging with the rock and rubble of the town. A holstered laser pistol rested casually on her left hip, belted loosely over a pure white, asymmetric, sheath-cut gown.

Two presiding priests, — unwillingly dragged from Cygnus Alpha by threats and torment — stood nervously behind the altar. They were soon dispatched by her laser-pistol.

Replacing the gun in the holster, the Servalan took the can of oil in one hand, and the spoon in the other, and turned to her assembled commanders. Flipping open the lid, with a deep breath the Empress Elect showered oil over her head and stood playing with the long spoon as if at the head of a marching band. For a while she assessed its balance, considering the spoon’s value as a weapon.

“As if I need priests.”

At the moment of anointment, no soldier stirred. But from among the ruins, an emaciated, mangy fox padded up to the Cathedral doorway, and peered nervously inside. The Empress gazed at the sudden creature in disbelief.

Gaining a little courage, slowly at first, the fox crept along the aisle towards the altar. As it approached, The Empress placed the spoon and oil can on the floor beside her and squatted, a smile crossing her face. With gestures and noises, she encouraged the fox towards her. From behind the altar, a vague plume of acrid smoke rose from the bodies of the two officiants.

When just within reach, Servalan grabbed the fox around its waist and rose, holding it above her head in triumph. She addressed the Cathedral.

“This…”.

She paused, took a breath, and reconsidered her words.

“My loyal officers, what you see before you today is an animal. Though _this_ is an animal, I wonder, — I _often_ wonder — what exactly you might be. _What are you?_ ”

Servalan paused, as if allowing reflection. She continued to hold the animal high in the air. Her familiar cast its eyes wildly around the Cathedral.

“Are you Colonels? Certainly. Generals? No doubt. Soldiers? Maybe. Fools? Yes. Certainly fools. But animals? You certainly die like animals: there is a body of evidence to that end in your flesh. But do you live like animals? I can see no disease. I can see no hunger. I can see no chaos. And what is left? So much plodding meat. Do not concern yourselves: such torment will end sooner than you think. 

“And yet, animals you certainly are. But for some reason, you expect some form of Resistance? Is it not more satisfying, you say, for reasons of narrative, for The Federation to be accompanied throughout its reign by a band of rebel freedom fighters? You yearn, — everywhere I can feel it, the _yearning_ — for picaresque tales of criminals, of _terrorists_ , with noble intent, travelling the galaxy and disrupting my work? And you each long for this crew of flotsam to regularly conjure beautiful ideas from the vacuum of space. All of this contemptible treachery only to this end: to lie to you, to say ‘You have no fleas?’ This animal you see before you, it is being eaten alive by them. And yet I can feel it breathing. Commanders, do you breathe?”

The Empress carefully placed the fox onto the ground. As if dazed, it slowly wandered towards where the Generals stood, losing itself among flags and insignia.

“And you also have fleas: you are crawling with them. This deception will _now_ , — at _this_ very moment, before your Empress — _end_. You heave with lice. I see them, and now you can feel them.”

“We are a federation of animals, of human animals. We have merely succeeded where previous empires have failed. There is no substance in that. Before you is simply the final, ultimate state of governance, and I absolute Empress. Do you find this so hard to believe?”

The fox weaved between the soldiers’ feet.

Servalan lifted from the foot of the altar table a delicate white face-mask, decorated in Arabesques of fine silver wire. She placed it over her nose and mouth. Two thin, translucent pipes led to a small white box which she clipped to the holster belt.

As she receded through the nave; as gas rapidly poured into the Cathedral from above; as soldiers began to crumple where they were standing; she began again, her voice seemingly unimpeded by that paper-thin mask.

“As you wish.

“The leader? A so called freedom-fighter? We shall call him Roj. He can be your drug. We will find him in the colonies somewhere in this worthless galaxy. Such people are not hard to find. One thing The Federation possesses in abundance is excess population.

“And we all need at least a _little_ sex. So there will also be a man in black, — Avon.

“We need a slightly exotic alien and a few extra characters which we can pencil in; we will fill them out later. There will be one, called Vila, who I will create as a souvenir, to remind me of today.

As the clouds of gas descended, the old fox ran from its hiding place behind the heavy fount, out into the destroyed streets of the town. The Empress approached the great door, turning her head between her ranked commanders, dying impassively where they had stood, and the fox escaping across the fields. After a short gesture of resignation, she continued:

“Though this band would be few, — poorly equipped, living only on heroic guile — they will, nevertheless, deal terrible blows to The Federation. They may not ultimately succeed, but in fighting for their airy ideals, they will have secured a vacation of hope within your dreary, imprisoned lives.

“Is this not the story you longed to hear? Does it not sound more complete, more satisfying, than _my_ Federation, unitary and without boundary or opposition, reigning in complete victory?

“Though, naturally, your lives are ultimately dedicated to _me, your undoubted Empress_ , do you not wish to see me _tested_? Do you not long to believe that there is more to life than to itch?”

Finally on the threshold, in perfect silhouette against the deep, blue evening, Servalan turned to the lifeless bodies heaped throughout the Cathedral, and added a parting address. 

“Now that you are deaf, let me tell you one more thing, one single thought more remarkable than those impotent fairy stories.

“I, your Empress, — your animal to whom you _truly_ owe complete and _entire_ service — I will die. The Federation, — a corporation of animals — it will die. Reigns _only_ end. _There_ is your hope.”

Turning her back to the Cathedral and walking away, she added, beneath her breath:

“There also is mine”.


End file.
